REVIEW   

Minerva Endocrinologica 2020 March;45(1):43-8

DOI: 10.23736/S0391-1977.18.02709-8

Copyright © 2018 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Clinicopathological significance of chemokine receptor CXCR4 expression in papillary thyroid carcinoma: a meta-analysis

Zhaoshu WU ¹, Yue CAO ², Xiaoyan JIANG ¹, Min LI ¹, Gang WANG ¹, Yue YANG ¹, Kai LU ¹ ✉

¹ Department of General Surgery, Nanjing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No.3 Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China; ² School of Basic Medical Sciences, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China

INTRODUCTION: Emerging evidence indicates that C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR 4) is a candidate oncogene in several types of human tumors including papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). To investigate its expression impact on clinicopathological features, a meta-analysis was performed.
EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: A comprehensive search in the PubMed, Embase and The Cochrane Library (up to March 14, 2017) was performed for relevant studies using multiple search strategies. Methodological quality of the studies was also evaluated. Odds ratios (ORs) were calculated and summarized.
EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: Final analysis was performed of 661 PTC patients from 8 eligible studies. The pooled OR indicated that CXCR4 expression was significantly higher in PTC than that in normal thyroid tissue and benign thyroid nodule (NTT/BTN) (OR=67.22, 95% CI: 32.85-137.55, P<0.00001). In subgroup analysis, CXCR4 expression was associated with age (OR=1.55, 95% CI: 1.02-2.34, P=0.04), lympaocytic thyroiditis (OR=1.68, 95% CI: 1.06-2.67, P=0.03); CXCR4 expression was not found to be associated with gender (OR=1.02, 95% CI: 0.66-1.58, P=0.93), multiple (OR=0.91, 95% CI: 0.55-1.53, P=0.73), lymph node metastatic (LNM) (OR=1.98, 95% CI: 0.88-4.47, P=0.10) and TNM stage (OR=2.00, 95% CI: 0.49-8.16, P=0.34). A sensitivity analysis found out the study by Zhu et al. which impacted the pooled OR, after removing this study, a positive and relatively stable result conformed that CXCR4 expression was associated to LNM.
CONCLUSIONS: The results of this meta-analysis suggest that CXCR4 expression is frequent and cancer-specific event in PTC.

KEY WORDS: Receptors, CXCR4; Thyroid cancer, papillary; Neoplasms; Biomarkers